President Donald Trump and his main advisor Steve Bannon have declared war on any press that is critical of them. Last week in an historically unprecedented move they banned the New York Times and CNN from a news conference. President Donald Trump’s spokesperson Kellyanne Conway has countered factual reporting with what she calls “alternative facts”, that is, lies. In order to raise the fear level of the population two weeks ago she falsely claimed a muslim carried out a terrorist massacre in Bowling Green, failing to indicate whether it was Bowling Green, New York, Bowling Green, Ohio, or Bowling Green, Kentucky. Also that week she promoted Ivana Trump’s product line trying to perk up sales of Trump’s fading brand after her jewelry and dresses were dropped by Nordstrom and other department stores.

Kellyanne Conway is a lawyer who graduated from George Washington School of Law in Washington DC. Lawyers’ unethical and illegal conduct is monitored by the Bar Association there. In response to her unethical conduct a number of law professors who specialize in legal ethics filed a complaint with the association.

Guest – Attorney Ellen Yaroshefsky, a specialist in ethics who teaches at Hofstra Law School. Ellen Yaroshefsky is a former staff attorney and then board member of the Center for constitutional rights. She is a leader of the National Lawyers Guild. Currently, she is the director of the Monroe Freedman Institute for the Study of Legal Ethics at the law school at Hofstra University.

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Obama v Bahlul Case: First Amendment Protections And More

We are on the verge of unconstrained military power to suppress dissent under Commander-In-Chief Donald Trump. Section 1021 of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act would allow him to fully put into effect the military detention of dissenters who oppose government wartime policies or support whistleblowers who bring those policies to light. In the case of ” Hedges versus Obama”, the Department of Justice argued that “mere expressive activities” could be sufficient grounds for military detention of civilians such as journalists and US citizen Chris Hedges, at the Commander-In-Chief’s discretion. The conspiracy conviction by a Military Commission of Mr. Ali al Bahlul, who made a movie promoting Al Qaeda, is going before the Supreme Court. He is represented by three attorneys including our guest Attorney Todd Pierce.

Guest -Todd Pierce, an attorney and a retired U.S. Army Judge Advocate General Corps Officer. He served as a military defense counsel before the Military Commissions on teams representing three Guantanamo clients. He remains involved with Guantanamo related issues as co-counsel on a Guantanamo case currently before the appellate courts as well as consulting on related human rights cases. He serves on the Advisory Board of ExposeFacts.org. He writes as a critic of U.S. foreign and national security policy, regularly contributing to Consortiumnews.com, antiwar.com, mondoweiss.net, and other media. He is a member of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity and Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence and the Consultative Counsel of Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy. He currently is working on a Masters Degree in Politics at the New School in New York with a particular focus on the works of Hannah Arendt and her writings on imperialism and totalitarianism.